Literacy Speaks Volumes

Last year, I decided to do a class read of Boy: Tales of Childhood by Roald Dahl; but, I decided to go easy on myself and make it as painless as possible. All assessments would be formative and there would be no summative assessment over this sweet memoir by one of the most famous YA authors. After reading the first two chapters, the students wrote five questions that might be on a book test for these two sections. But instead of me creating the questions for the students, I had them get together and create their own questions.  The students had to use my basic format: 1. Define the meaning of _____. 2. Where was/were _____. 3. Name as many _____. 4. Describe in your own words _____. 5. What happened when _____. I was very pleased with the results. These are just two of the formative assessments turned in to me. I'm going to be working on this activity for my English Labs this year. I'm going to try to steer away from so many multiple-c...

Along with formative assessment, Essential Learning Statements or Essential Learning Standards seems to be the newest buzzword for administrators and educators. But just because it is current or trendy does not necessarily mean that it is a negative aspect. One positive result of all of the newest focus on assessment-based practices is that I've become a better teacher because I've had to step back and really look at my curriculum. I'm not talking about the one that my school system has handed down. No, I'm talking about the one published by my state department of education that clearly states what will be tested this year. I've become something of a State Performance Indicator guru. Essential Learning Statements are just what they sound like: simple sentences in kid-friendly terms that state clearly what the student is learning that day. Tennessee State Performance Indicator 0701.1.1 states "identify the correct use of nouns (i.e. proper/common, singu...

Formative assessment vs. summative assessment~what exactly do the two mean? Are they processes or tools? What is the goal of each? How do you assess students using each of these types of assessments? One of my personal goals this year is to get a handle on assessment~and I'm not just talking about grading papers in a timely manner (although I need to get a grip on that also). I'm talking about using daily meaningful assessment as part of my lesson plan. In fact, I'm now creating two basic plans for each week~one is a lesson plan, an outline of what lessons will be taught on each day of the week; the other is an assessment plan. The assessment plan is a chart that states exactly what I want the students to do to show me that they have learned the lesson (ex. I can identify conflict in a teleplay), how they are going to show me (TLW fill in a chart with examples of least three conflicts in the teleplay), and what I'm going to do if the student(s) cannot do this by...